The Coon-Sanders Nighthawks: The Band That Made Radio Famous

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Carleton A. Coon, Sr., and Joe L. Sanders formed the Coon-Sanders Orchestra in 1919 in Kansas City, Missouri. Three years later, under the name ‘Nighthawks’, the band, began broadcasting experimental, highly-popular midnight radio programs over Kansas City’s WDAF. Their music was played all over the world, and the band remained one of America’s top bands until Coon’s death in 1932. Here is the complete history of the Coon-Sanders Orchestra, the band whose gay, saucy, and bustling music, and carefree and extravagant musicians symbolized the era between World War I and the Great Depression. This work covers it all, from the two leaders and their very different personalities, and the various band members, to their association with Jules Cesar Stein (who set the band on a five-week tour that made enough money for Stein to found the Music Corporation of America, or MCA), to their adventures playing on the East Coast and Midwest and west to Denver and south to Galveston and New Orleans; and finally to Coon’s death in 1932.